Is Obama's Civility Wise Or Just Wimpy?

ELLEN GOODMAN WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP

September 18, 2009|ELLEN GOODMAN WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP

BOSTON — For me, the real Obama moment of this back-to-work season wasn't the speech before Congress or Wall Street. It was in the Virginia schoolhouse when a ninth-grader asked him a question that had nothing and everything to do with his presidency: "And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?"

The president was not about to choose Lindsay Lohan. Nor did he pick Abe Lincoln. His answer was Gandhi. Yes, that Gandhi.

"It would probably be a really small meal because he didn't eat a lot," he added with humor. But the icon of nonviolent leadership was his inspiration because "he ended up doing so much and changing the world just by the power of his ethics."

As I heard this, I imagined a huge groan emanating skyward from a frustrated phalanx of his supporters. "Gandhi? Did he say Gandhi?"

These are people who spent the summer waiting for Obama's inner fighter. The left thought he'd gotten right-wing sand kicked in his face. The media got nostalgic for LBJ, urging Obama to twist arms and knock heads. Instead they heard the man telling a polarized Congress, "I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility."

This is the Obama story. Right from the get-go, Americans were attracted to a man who was more collaborative than combative. The country liked a man who fashioned himself as a healer. And yet there has always been this underlying anxiety. Can you be a healer and a politician? If you try to mediate an ideological divide, do you just end up in the crossfire?

Michael Ignatieff, leader of the Liberal Party in Canada, recently described his transition from academic to politician this way: "It's combat. And you have to be ready for combat, and you have to lead troops into a kind of rhetorical battle. And you've got to show fight. This is not a seminar." Clearly, Obama knows this. But it's equally clear that he wants to do this leadership thing his own way. As his would-be dinner companion would say, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

This is risky stuff. After all, the iconic American hero is the man who doesn't pick a fight but is inevitably pushed into one. I'm not sure Obama can pull it off. Joe Wilson raised hackles for disrespecting the president, but he also raised $1.5 million - for himself and his opponent.